It All Came Crashing Down
by Fleur the First
Summary: Love had failed Vaughn, and in turn, he failed it."


It All Came Crashing Down  
  
Author's Note: For some reason, I still love Vaughn. I know I should hate him, but I just can't give up home on the bum. Hence, this pitiful peace of sap.  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned Alias, Lauren would have suffered a horrible death long, long ago.  
  
***  
  
Michael Vaughn's life did not fall apart the day he found out that his marriage was a lie. In truth, his marriage had been doomed to failure, for it had never been more than a pathetic attempt to secure with Lauren what he never would with Sydney. Love had failed Vaughn, and in turn, he failed it.  
  
When he first saw the wig he thought he was having a dream: a dark and terrible dream. In it his world was falling away, leaving him alone with his demons. Deep down he knew he was not dreaming, though, because he'd experienced the sensation of losing his world before, and it was not something easily forgotten.  
  
Like a robot he closed the suitcase and put it back in its place. He cast one last glance in its direction before leaving the bedroom and closing the door behind him. When he got to the kitchen he paced for a moment, his thoughts so jumbled they would not even allow him one thread to follow. Eventually he moved to the front door, which he exited quietly. Not before leaving a note, though.  
  
Lauren,  
  
I went for a drive. I'll be home soon.  
  
Love,  
  
Michael  
  
A part of him wanted to strangle his wife—he used the term loosely—and another was still too shocked to act. The latter was a very small part, yet it was enough to keep him from murdering Lauren in cold blood. If his time as an agent had taught him one thing, it was not to blow one's cover. Right now his cover was that of the doting husband, so that is what he would remain until the powers that be told him otherwise.  
  
He got in the car and began to drive aimlessly. Jack's words echoed in his head the entire ride, as well as his own. I know my wife, he'd said.  
  
He hadn't, of course. Not even a little bit.  
  
Lauren was working for the Covenant. She had married him because he was useful. She did not love him. She never had. She had brought light into his life, but she was not his sun, just the moon, reflecting that which was truly the sun's.  
  
Sydney.  
  
He had held off thinking about her. Immediately a deep pain grasped at his chest. Though it was only an emotion he felt in physically as it dug its fingers into his heart, going deeper and deeper until he thought he might explode. Somehow he managed to keep driving.  
  
He ended up at the beach. He stumbled out of his car and onto the soft sand, where he promptly sunk to his knees. It hadn't really been Sydney's ashes he had spread in these waters, but still he felt here there, watching over him.  
  
He had loved Sydney with every fiber of his being. Yes, he had married another, but that did not make his love any cheaper. The entire world had told him to move on when all he wanted was to wallow in his grief. He finally listened, only to be rewarded by a hellish few months in which everybody scorned him for doing what they had told him to do all along.  
  
If that wasn't a catch-22, he didn't know what was.  
  
Worse than all that, however, was what he had done to Sydney. He had tried to give her up, to help ease the pain she must have felt. He knew what it was to wish for someone you couldn't have, but at least he hadn't had to see that someone exchanging affections with someone else.  
  
He had given her hope, she had told him, when he separated from Lauren. Then Lauren's father died, and he couldn't bring himself to abandon her. Instead he abandoned Sydney. What had seemed so gray a few weeks ago was now just black and white.  
  
He had made her cry. Probably more times than he would ever know. Sydney Bristow was not a woman who should be made to cry. She was too strong for tears. He had not fallen in love with some fragile waif prone to elaborate displays of emotion.  
  
The crashing waves were steadying his breathing. Dimly, Vaughn brought his eyes to the water. The crests of the waves reached towards the heavens, hovering for only a moment before they fell and crashed. They did so repeatedly, never ceasing the cycle. He made a sound that was half laugh, half cry. He was nowhere near stupid enough to miss the similarities he shared with them.  
  
He had no hope that all of this would work out in the end. He did not believe that he could stroll up to Sydney, take her in his arms, and tell her that she was right, his wife was a conniving villain that he would now forsake. Instead he would be scrutinized under her gaze, which would be a mix of pity and betrayal.  
  
Jack had been right, he wasn't good enough for the man's only daughter. The one person who had ever thought he was good enough was the person he had hurt the most. It was easy, Vaughn reflected, hurting the people we love. Irina had hurt Jack. Lauren had hurt him. He had hurt Sydney.  
  
He had always loved her. He loved her the first time he set eyes on her. He loved her in death. He loved her in life. He loved her so much it hurt. Lauren had preoccupied him to the point where he had forgotten how much love hurt. Well, he remembered now.  
  
Later that night Vaughn got back in his car and drove back to the home he shared with Lauren. He climbed into bed, rested his head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling, the salt from the ocean still clinging to his clothes. It was not sleep that claimed Michael Vaughn that night, but the memory Sydney's face as he refused to believe her when she warned him of Lauren's identity. 


End file.
